Pa. utilities, road crews keep eye on Sandy

Home Depot workers Shaun Sika, left and Jose Maysonet load the last generator on the store's shelves into a customer's SUV in Glastonbury, Conn. on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. East Coast residents are preparing for a major storm expected to hit the region early next week. (AP Photo/Dave Collins)

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Utilities, road crews, and emergency management personnel throughout Pennsylvania are girding for a potentially damaging storm early next week.

Utility workers have been told to cancel vacations, state transportation officials are plotting strategy and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency has been in touch with federal weather forecasters about the likely path of the storm.

Hurricane Sandy barreled over Cuba and Haiti on Thursday. Forecasters say the hurricane will likely combine with other weather systems to bring high winds, heavy rains and possibly snow to the northeastern U.S.

PPL Corp. spokesman Michael Wood said the utility has canceled personal time for its workers, asked hundreds of local contractors to remain on standby and will import crews from its sister utility in Kentucky as early as Sunday night.

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“We’re looking at this as a very serious storm that could be potentially significantly damaging to our system and impact our customers,” Wood said.

PPL’s phone and computer systems were overwhelmed last year when Hurricane Irene and then a late October snow storm caused hundreds of thousands of customers to lose power. Wood said the utility has since made upgrades, adding phone lines and call center staff, and is better prepared to handle a monster storm.

“We’re in a much better place this year,” he said.

Other Pennsylvania utilities, including PECO and FirstEnergy, said they’re also getting ready in the event Sandy slams the state. PECO opened its emergency operations center in Plymouth Meeting, outside Philadelphia, on Thursday morning.

The Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency urged residents to prepare for a possible storm by making sure they have three days of supplies at home, and that they know how to reach family members in case of emergency.

State transportation officials in Harrisburg will be plotting storm strategy with PennDOT’s 11 regional offices on Friday.

“We get decision makers on the line to really talk about, OK, what’s our strategy? Is this ready? Is that truck ready? Do we have enough salt moved? We go over the nuts and bolts of really managing the storm to make sure we are on the same playing field,” said PennDOT spokesman Steve Chizmar.

Chizmar said PennDOT has 2,250 trucks that can be pressed into service as snow plows and salt spreaders.

He said now is a good time for motorists to make sure their vehicles are ready for winter and stocked with an emergency kit.

State elections officials in Harrisburg were not planning any precautionary warnings or action in anticipation of the storm, for now.

The 67 counties run elections in Pennsylvania and it is their responsibility to have contingency plans for storms, floods, fires and other events that could interfere with voters casting ballots on Election Day, said State Department spokesman Ron Ruman.

Backup measures may include designating alternative polling places, he said.

Also, county election board also may petition the county’s president judge to extend voting hours on Election Day to compensate for temporary interruptions in balloting.